A Small Paradise
by Anniely
Summary: Just a One-shot that popped into my mind as I pictured Severus sitting in Spinner's End, alone and hopeless. But there's somebody out there for everybody.


_A/N: Weird One-Shot. Have mercy on me, English is not my first language. Please tell me what you think._

_None of this is mine, only the idea._

_**A Small Paradise**_

Severus Snape sat there on the stairs - alone, long unshed tears running down his pale cheeks. He had not looked that lonely for a very long time and had indeed never actually felt so very lonely before. The old package of crackers was almost empty.

His left foot was throbbing with pain where the glass splinter had cut it open, but the man did not care. He pushed the thought of the pain away, just as he tried to push the ache in his heart away.

As the black-haired man took the last cracker, he heard a faint creak and a small beacon of light shone through the door.

Astonished the wizard forgot the food in his hand for a moment and instead stared at the young woman, who appeared in the doorframe.

Her hair was short and light brown. It stuck up into all directions. Her face was dominated by a pair of piercing, but very kind, deep brown eyes and a soft mouth with red shining lips.

She stood in the doorway and shot him a fast glance: Severus could not read in her eyes as he could in everybody else's and that confused him. Over his confusion he even forgot the tears that were still leaking out of his eyes - those treacherous salty tears.

A smile shone in the brown depths of her eyes and she gently closed the dark wooden door and walked towards him with an air of - easiness. Peace and Freedom.

Severus did not pay any attention to her cloths, for they seemed unimportant next to her face and the way she walked. As she stepped onto the first shards of the broken bottles and vials the man realized that she was not wearing any shoes. But obviously the woman did not care about the pain - she almost seemed to levitate towards his refugee on the staircase.

And then she stood before him and the man with the jet-black hair could take in everything.

Her small nose and long lashes. The reddish glow her hair had and her pierced ears - small pearls glistening in her earlobes.

There were small crinkles around her eyes, evidence for her carefree nature, but also for her rather young age. When she had been standing near the door, Severus would have thought her to be not older than twenty-five, but now she looked rather like eighteen. Although her face seemed to be old and young at the same time - there was so much more in her eyes; they were like holes, but not those deep, black ones that swallow you, but those that hide so much for you. Like skies.

The woman - the man had decided to think of her as a woman - lifted her hand and gently placed it on Severus' cheek. Her palm was cool, but not in an unpleasant way. It felt good on his hot face. She wiped the tears away, slowly and gently, not taking her eyes from his and left Severus' cheeks tingling where her skin had touched them.

"Why are you crying?", she asked, as one single tear made its way down his face, when she took her hand away. Her voice was soft and light. It sounded like the sun and birds singing in the trees. Like perfection, though it was not a singing voice. Severus would have loved to hear her sing, anyways.

"Because I am lonely", he finally whispered and felt embarrassed and somewhat freed and the same time. He should not be crying in front of this strange woman that seemed to see right trough him, an ability he had prided himself upon before. But somehow he knew that he could trust her. She would not laugh at him.

And indeed she did not. Instead she sad beside him and cradled his head in her arm. Buried on her shoulder in the fabric of her top, Severus felt at ease. She smelled heavenly. For month he not smelled anything but dust and mould and this woman smelled like fresh air and sun and woods. And lemon and plain soap.

His fresh tears stained her clothes, but the strange woman did not seem to care.

She stroke his hear and rubbed his back.

"But you are not alone. I am here. Can't you see? I am here", she said to him and lightly kissed the top of his head.

"But you will leave me, too. Everybody does. Because I am old and ugly and unfriendly", Severus pointed out, his voice muffled. He tried to draw back, to make it easier for this stranger to escape from him. But she made no attempt to do so. She did not loosen her grip on him, or stop to stroke his hair.

And hesitantly the man leaned his forehead against her shoulder again.

"I am not everybody", the woman simply replied "And I will not leave you."

Now she allowed him to pull away and he looked at her, his black eyes meeting her brown ones. And he saw nothing but honesty and something else - a sparkling emotion he could not name.

"What it that sparkling", he asked confused.

The woman cracked a smile - a small, hearty one.

"That's my love for you."

"How can you love me?"

"I love you for what you are", she stated simply, sounding as if it was the easiest thing in the world to love someone simply because they were.

"I don't like what I am", he replied sadly, afraid she would think better of it and leave.

"Then I will love you twice as much."

And Severus nodded and wiped the tears of his face. Then he let himself be helped to his feet and the woman led him through the house and told him stories and listened to his and every room they entered suddenly shone with light and became a small paradise.


End file.
